That's not a particularly ground-breaking statement. There have been many studies done and articles written about how the state doles out cash to schools, each pointing out large discrepancies between the "richest" and "poorest" districts.

It's a problem the state has readily admitted, and has taken steps to remedy. A commission was formed to study the problem and come up with a solution, eventually unveiling a new "fair funding formula."

But that formula only impacts new state money. And because the state doesn't tend to include enormous funding increases in its annual budget, it will take a very, very long time for the playing field to level itself.

Again, none of this is new.

But a new study recently came across my desk that put the whole situation into shocking perspective.

A group called Citizens for Fair School Funding took a look at what the state's 500 school districts are getting in state funding this year and compared it with what each district would get if all the state money was run through the fair funding formula.

The results are crazy.

There are 13 districts that are getting less than half of what the funding formula says they should get in basic education funding, and 93 that are getting less than 75 percent. There are 34 districts getting less than 50 percent of their recommended special education funding.

At the same time, there are three districts getting more than 500 percent of their recommended basic education subsidy, and 15 getting more than 300 percent. A total of 99 districts are getting at least twice what the fair funding formula would provide them.

I don't know if, like the report claims, school funding in Pennsylvania is racist. The funding shortages do tend to hit urban districts with high minority populations (the Reading School District is getting shorted $104 million, the report says).

But saying the system is racist is a charged statement, and perhaps a little too simple an explanation of what's going on.

What I do know is that the way schools are funded isn't fair, and it threatens to leave thousands of kids behind, based solely on their ZIP code.